


dressed in graffiti, darling, we're a masterpiece made from the overlap

by ohmymaple71



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff and Angst, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied Relationships, Introspection, M/M, Other, i caught up finally and im emo, ive loved red team and simmons since s1 and s16 really stepped up its red team game, liiiiitle bit of hurt/comfort, vague spoilers for s16 ig??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-24 15:44:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15633747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmymaple71/pseuds/ohmymaple71
Summary: They’re Grif and Simmons, and they’re not going to just stop being two parts of the same masterpiece, because they are their own fucking artists and no God or cosmic coincidence will ever stand a chance against them.[ a look at Grif and Simmons, Simmons and Grif ]





	dressed in graffiti, darling, we're a masterpiece made from the overlap

It’s hard to tell, sometimes, where one of them ends and the other starts. 

 

Hard to find the border that separates them, that marks one of them as Grif and the other as Simmons. It’s blurry, like foggy glass, and sometimes they’re not sure there is one anymore. 

 

It’s like putting ink in water, or a yellow marker through a black line. It blends, and it tugs, and it leaves their borders blurred and tangled, and it’s not like they’re the same person, but they… are?

 

They’re Grif and Simmons.

 

They’re Simmons and Grif.

 

Dexter and Richard, Richard and Dexter, maroon and orange, orange and maroon.

 

Red Team’s finest, two simtroopers with too many years between them and too much bullshit in front of them.

 

They never think about it, not really. It’s as simple as breathing, as easy as blinking; if Simmons turns right and Grif turns left, they’ll be there. They’re always there. Grif and Simmons, remember? Simmons and Grif?

 

They blend. They mold and they  _ exist _ and that’s just- that’s just it.

 

Simmons says, “Grif, you need to stop sleeping in places that will get you killed! It’s like you have a deathwish, fatass!” And he has that pinched white mother expression he always has.

 

And Grif says, “Everywhere can get us killed, Simmons. That’s the reality of the universe.” And he rolls over.

 

That’s how they are.

 

Simmons stretches his lanky ass over the couch at Red Base and reads one of his stupid books, and Grif says “Who’s the fatass now, huh?” and Simmons flips him off but he brings his knees up. By the time an hour has passed, he’s got his legs across Grif’s lap and they’re bickering about if  _ Stargate _ is better than  _ A New Hope _ , and when Sarge tells them to shut up they snicker and continue, just more quietly.

 

It’s always been like that. 

 

Grif steals the blankets from Simmons’ bunk in basic, and Simmons threatens the stash in the ceiling, and they stare each other down from different sides of a bunk bed for two hours when they should be, like, running drills and they break when Simmons sneezes and Grif uses that as his advantage. He throws the blankets on top of him, uses the cursing to flip the taller over his shoulder like a shrieking sack of potatoes. By the end of it they’re half tangled in the blanket sweat and absolutely  _ grinning _ despite the insults they’re hurling, and not even Simmons can be upset when their C.O gives them latrine duty for fooling around and wrestling instead of being serious.

 

Neither of them can see a future where that  _ isn’t _ the norm, and they should know; they’ve seen a lot of shit that breaks what could be considered the norm.

 

When they’ve left the canyon, when things have gotten weird and they both know they’re in over their heads, they sit around a lot. More than usual, at least, because they’ve always just sat around, it’s their  _ thing _ , but this is different. This is late nights when they both want to drop dead, when Simmons has given up on cleaning his and Grif’s side of Red Base 2.0 and Grif has given up on trying to get out of doing any of the work because things are tense, and abrasive, and the Blues are more trouble than they’re worth but there’s no reason for them to stay in Blood Gulch alone, right? No Red with Blue, no Blue without Red. 

 

They stay up instead, just the two of them, and they find a place that’s flat and mossy and they sit there, shoulder to shoulder, back to the stone. Sometimes they talk, sometimes they don’t. When they do, it’s quiet; soft tones and tired looks, helmets off and eyes open wide in the dim light.

 

Simmons keeps his eyes on the sky, the stars that are altogether familiar and yet strange, and when he talks his voice is quiet and small. 

 

He says, “Do you think we know what we’re getting into?”

 

And when Grif replies he’s got his eyes on his friend, mismatched colours and patchwork skin lax and waiting, watching for any reaction and when he talks his voice is low and tired. 

 

He goes, “I dunno. Do we ever know what we’re getting into?”

 

And Simmons shakes his head, lets out a quiet snort. Looks at the ground, wiggles his metal fingers. Looks at the stars again. Grif looks at them, too. He wishes he could find a familiar constellation, but even the ones he learned in Blood Gulch are gone.

 

“Think we’ll die?” Simmons asks, and this time Grif snorts and shakes his head. Leans his shoulder down to knock into Simmons’. 

 

“We’ll definitely die,” He answers, and he looks at Simmons and Simmons looks at Grif, and Grif can see the shine on his left eye. Knows his own matches the green of the right, hidden just like his brown in the darkness. It’s an unspoken comfort, a wordless reassurance. A constant between them, something familiar, and before long they laugh, listless and stupid and Simmons gets up but waits for Grif before he goes back to base.

 

They’re a pair, a constant, a universal fucking fixed point. Wherever there is a Grif, there is a Simmons.

 

Things get hectic. Things get weird. They learn more than ever that sure, they’re not good, they’re not really soldiers, but they’ve got luck. They’ve got a lot of dumb fucking luck, and a lot of spite, and it’s enough to keep them going through all of this bullshit, and when it’s cold and they’ve just lost their best fighter somewhere in the snow, there’s more spite than luck on their side.

 

And then things turn around. The Meta looks weak. They have a shot, they have a chance, it’ll all go so well and then three things happen. These three things are very important, in the grand scheme of things,and they should be remembered for later. They will not be remembered for later.

 

One: Grif has an idea, and Simmons feels it from where he’s standing like a flash of light. He doesn’t need to see Grif’s face to tell anymore, can pick it up from the way he sounds on their comms. Simmons feels his chest simultaneously loosen up and feel as if it’s got iron bands around it.

 

Two: Grif’s plan works, at first. And then it doesn’t, and Grif disappears. Gone. Poof. Simmons is running before he realizes it, lungs screaming and heartbeat too loud in his ears and Grif is… Grif is gone. He’s alone. He had his hand and then he didn’t, and the warmth doesn’t even linger because of how cold it is but Simmons can’t- He can’t. He cannot keep going without Grif, can’t just  _ accept _ this, and he feels like every particle of his soul is starting to tear away, like the world has vanished from under his feet instead of Grif’s.

 

Three: Grif is not dead. Simmons doesn’t know how he knows, can’t tell even thinking back on it if it’s denial or vain hope that makes him look over, but Grif is still there, the bastard. He’s just hanging there, and it feels like the sun has risen again, like any doubt he could have has just vanished and only when Grif is standing beside him again does Simmons realize he’s been crying. Of course he has, and he knows that  _ Grif _ knows because he gives him that  _ look _ and Simmons can feel the ribbing coming on. 

 

But instead Grif doesn’t say a word, and they worry about the Blues and Wash, about the UNSC coming in and neither of them say a word until everyone’s showered and warm. Until they’ve all been patched up, sent off to bunks and Simmons’ hands are cold when they wrap around Grif’s shoulders. Grif’s are warm where they fold across Simmons’ back, and they stay like that for a long time, shaken and tired and in over their heads. Unable to put voice to the words they should be using, but getting it anyway.

 

They’re maroon and orange after all, a pair. Shades of colour in a spectrum that always end up beside each other, with tattered edges and mixed-up threads.

 

When they’re stuck on Chorus, when they’re thrown into the middle of a war, they settle. It’s weird, in a way, how it takes  _ this _ to put them there, but they settle all the same. Maybe it’s the death. Real death.The feeling of it around them, always, the look of the soldiers- of the  _ children _ they’re being asked to teach to fight. Maybe it’s the conditions, the knowledge that they’re the losing side of a war that has long since passed the point of mercy. 

 

Maybe it’s the fact that they’re the only ones left, that the others are probably dead. That it’s not the Reds and Blues anymore, caught up in a conspiracy bigger than they could ever hope to be, but it’s just them. Just maroon and orange, just aqua and blue. The four of them pull together, understand that this makes things very different, but it’s hard to remove that separation. They still seat themselves opposite, still preface their squadrons as ‘Red’ or ‘Blue’, and that’s always been their thread of normalcy, hasn’t it?

 

They settle with that knowledge, and by the fourth funeral Simmons has stopped feeling like he’s going to throw up, and Grif has stopped running the numbers in his head, over and over. 

 

They each have their quarters, sure, but more often than not they fall asleep on tables, against walls. In warthogs and by the training range, and soon enough it’s a regular occurrence for Simmons to shake Caboose awake and tell him he should get some rest, that he’ll watch for the others, pretend he didn’t hear the sadness in Caboose’s voice. For Tucker to nudge Grif until he grunted, tell him to move his lazy ass so they could slog on and for Grif to pretend he didn’t hear the warmth in Tucker’s tone. 

 

But they were Reds, and Reds dealt with their own shit. It was in their manual, page four-hundred and fifteen, section K-82, a)ii and mentioned in footnote forty-two, amendment 12. 

 

So they keep it quiet, and in both of their quarters there are pieces of each other, bits from Maroon Team that have leaked in Gold Team’s papers, and when Simmons finds himself bleeding again, his fist raw and bruising, he goes to Grif and falls into the comfort of their bickering, drifts off to the familiar sounds of Grif’s breathing. 

 

Grif, for his part, breaks in smaller ways. Simmons knows, though. He’s never been intuitive until it comes to Grif, and when Grif wanders in with that lost look, with the distant voice and his curls messier than usual, Simmons knows. He pulls him in and runs code in the background, rattles off numbers and statistics and gets the worst of the knots out as gently as he can. Grif is usually asleep before he’s begun explaining why this code could help.

 

They don’t talk about the nightmares. They understand.

 

It’s more than just friendliness in a team, more than just two chucklefucks from basic. They’re Grif and Simmons, Simmons and Grif, and their borders blend and blur and mix until they’re a watercolour painting. A piece of art, of work, something they never really notice until it’s gone, until the colour is gone and they are alone, and thank fuck it doesn’t happen very often because they’re Two.

 

A duo.

 

A team.

 

Maroon and Orange, Dexter and Richard, a universal fucking constant and two sides of the same coin. 

 

Things change and they deal with the bullshit but they’re the same, really. They understand. They get it, get each other, chose each other without wanting to, without choosing to,  and that’s rare. 

 

It’s why it hurts so much when they realize their other isn’t there, that the space that was always occupied is empty, is gone. Their constant has become unstable, their timeline has begun to unravel, and sure, it hurts, but they’ve dealt with bullshit before.

 

They’re Grif and Simmons, and they’re not going to just  _ stop _ being two parts of the same masterpiece, because they are their own fucking artists and no God or cosmic coincidence will ever stand a chance against them.

 

It’s why they’re here. 

**Author's Note:**

> i watched s16 and I cried a little, those simmons and grif moments made me so happy. I'm a red bitch to my core and s16 is DELIVERING SOME CONTENT but also like.... the way simms kept watching grif leave made me emo, so I took that idea and the often used fact that they are a Duo (TM) and then.... profit?? Idk. Let me know whatcha think if you've got thots, I live off of comments and I need to finish the zom au I have.


End file.
